Word: graf
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...major tournament victories, but none managed that perfect dominance over their rivals and the calendar. Only four other tennis players, male and female, belong in this most exclusive of tennis clubs: Don Budge (1938), Maureen Connolly (1953), Rod Laver (1962 and 1969) and Margaret Court (1970). On Saturday Steffi Graf of West Germany joined that short list, after momentary jitters, with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 win over Argentine Gabriela Sabatini in the U.S. Open final...
...Graf, 19, secured her place on the plaque with a style drawn more from Clausewitz than Connolly or Court. She dropped only two sets in the course of her conquest. In the first act, the Australian Open in January, she sent Evert down under 6-1, 7-6. In Paris in June, she pulverized Soviet Natalia Zvereva 6-0, 6-0, the only double bagel ever in a French Open singles final and the first in a grand-slam final since 1911. The walkover took all of 32 minutes on the soft, molasses-slow red clay. During the award ceremony...
...first test came in July during the Wimbledon finals. Navratilova, the woman Graf dethroned as No. 1, sees the All England Club's greenswards as a personal fief, and she won the opening set. For a moment it looked as though the 31-year-old Navratilova would gain a distinction long coveted -- a record ninth Wimbledon singles title, one more than Helen Wills Moody won back in the 1920s and '30s. Martina punched the air in anticipation. But silently the skies turned from summer sun to North Atlantic squall, and Steffi simply and unceremoniously broke the veteran's serve again...
...time the U.S. Open came around, scarcely anyone doubted that Graf would romp. Her task was made even easier when Navratilova exited prematurely in the quarterfinals after a fabulous seesawing bout, probably the fortnight's best, with Zina Garrison. It was a particularly melancholy end for Navratilova, who during 1983-84 won six consecutive majors and contends that she too has won the slam. Few, however, agree: the slam, like all classic stories, must adhere to certain unities of time and space, the calendar year being one of them...
This year' s Wimbledon had a feeling of passage as new champions were crowned. One of them, West Germany' s Steffi Graf, is for the ages...